Tag: Healing

What Can You Do When They Believe In You?

Belief is powerful. When you believe in someone, when you have faith in them, what is it that you are doing? You are affirming their credibility and integrity. You are empowering their capacity for doing more good. You are infusing their identity with joy.

When you entrust someone with your belief, loyalty and allegiance, you are opening up new possibilities for flourishing in the world you inhabit.

I served on the Student Senate my sophomore year at Huntington University. Since I was a Bible & Religion major, I volunteered for the Spirituality Committee, which was tasked with helping improve our mandatory chapel experience for students. (At our small Christian college you had to go X amount each semester). We wanted to make it more engaging and student-led. Our subcommittee helped draft an idea that with modifications was approved.

When it came time to appoint a leader for the new student-led chapel on Wednesday nights, I was asked to lead it. To which I emphatically said, “No!”

This seemed like too big of a leadership challenge for me, and I really was afraid of all the work that it would require to make it successful. I liked the idea, and I really liked the idea of somebody else making it happen.

I’ll be forever indebted to the campus chaplain Bill Fisher for encouraging me to apply for this leadership role. He  believed in me when I didn’t. It changed the course of my life. Bill had faith in me, which empowered me to see and do things that I hadn’t thought possible.

When you believe in people, you unleash new possibilities for the flourishing of souls and places and organizations. And when you don’t believe in people, when you don’t pour faithfulness and trust into them (because you don’t pay attention or don’t want to get involved) – well that’s when hope dies and possibilities wither.

This happened to Jesus. In a pivotal story of the gospel, Mark tells of Jesus returning to his hometown of Nazareth with all of his disciples. This should have been a homecoming of great honor for Jesus and the village. It started off well, with Jesus as a revered Teacher and famously powerful Prophet in the synagogue on the Sabbath reading from the Torah and giving brilliant commentary on it. “…many who heard him were amazed.”

But then something happened, maybe they got a little jealous, whatever it was, “they took offense at him.” They didn’t believe in Jesus anymore, they resented him; and this prevented him from doing any miracles there, he was only able to “lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. He was amazed at their lack of faith [in him].”

If Jesus is vulnerable to the power of belief, we obviously are too.

Think about what this means for your close family and friends? Sometimes they can be the hardest ones to believe in, because you know so much about them, maybe been hurt too much, it’s become too complicated. Something similar happened to Jesus when he went home after accomplishing great things for his nation. “A prophet is not without honor except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own home.”

But you know what? Jesus didn’t give up on his people, his family and friends, or his enemies. He didn’t quit believing in them, didn’t quit being faithful to them, even though they had quit believing in him. So what eventually happened?

We know that anxious Mary the mother of Jesus stayed at the foot of the cross during his execution, risking her own life to be there with her condemned son until the very end.

Unbelieving James the brother of Jesus would become the leading bishop of Jerusalem in the new church and became known as “old camel knees” because of all the time he spent in prayer, like his big brother Jesus used to do.

You want to heal and change the life of those you live or work with? Tell them you believe in them.

Imagine how your life would be empowered if more people looked you in the eye and said, “I believe in you.” Now go and do likewise.

Don’t Be Afraid; Just Believe

For all of our advances in health sciences and technology, America is the most obese nation on earth, we are literally eating ourselves to death. We make ourselves sick by mostly preventable diseases.

It’s not just what we eat that is killing us, it’s what we believe about what and why we eat. And too often it’s our fears that drive us to eat what will kill us.

For the ancient people of Israel, much of their fear and anxiety was also food related- except they had opposite problem. Malnutrition, famines, harvest tributes to temple authorities, local rulers and Imperial Rome – all of this prompted grinding poverty, blindness, crippling diseases, and early death.

In our society, when so many of our ailments are self-induced, the real healing isn’t from diabetes, cancer, or heart-attacks. The real healing is for the fear and anxieties that fuel our over-eating, that foments disbelief, that deepens depression, that cut us off from friends, family, neighbors and strangers.

In the gospel story for this week’s devotion, we read about how Jesus heals an anxious woman reduced to poverty by paying doctors to help her find a cure for her chronic bleeding. We read of Jesus going to the wealthy home of a respected but terrified religious leader, to heal his dying daughter. They had much to be afraid of. But they still believed.

Jesus came to Israel not just to heal and save individuals, but to gather disciples that would send to heal and save communities. Jesus came not just to heal women, children and men who were afflicted by the lack of food and medicine, but to subvert the systems that starved and abused communities. The salvation from sin he brought was for this life and the next.

Jesus didn’t do miracles in Israel to prove he was God. He healed his people because he loved them, and as a sign of the compassion of God, affirmation that his way leads to overcoming evil and flourishing for all. This is how his kingdom comes, how his will is done.

When we read this gospel story, we read of a Jesus who loves the world, especially those who are poor in spirit and mourn. We also read of a Jesus who leverages his immense power for healing and restoration, renewing bodies and families. He goes to where he is welcome, he blesses those who want it. “Daughter of Israel, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”

Sometimes we are the bleeding woman, the dying daughter, the grieving father and mother. Sometimes we are the believing disciples, sent by Jesus with the power to heal anxieties, to stir up trust and courage, to drive out fear with love. In our society, that is the healing we really need, what we are pleading for. “Don’t be afraid; just believe.”

Let’s form learning communities around the way and will of Jesus, for the healing of our fears, for empowering our faithfulness to God, and for belief in one another, anchored in trust.

Can you name the fears that drive you to sickness? What are the anxieties that are wrecking your soul? Why are you eating yourself to death? What if your mind could be transformed by the will and ways of Christ? “Don’t be afraid; just believe.”

May Jesus become present to you, may he connect you to those who will bring about healing for the sickness in your heart, may he embolden your faith, and may his instructions direct our steps towards flourishing for all: “Don’t be afraid; just believe.”

For Those Who Cry Out For Mercy

When I was a kid, we had a huge backyard. One summer my dad put together a jungle gym for us four boys. We had loads of fun climbing it and especially jumping off of it.

One afternoon we were inspired to play superheros. I jumped off with a big shout, “Superman!” When I landed my mouth was full of blood – I had bit my tongue while shouting and landing. I had a hard time calling out for help, but my mom quickly figured it out and mercifully took care of me.

Sometimes when people get hurt, they have a hard time asking for help. Not just because of bitten tongues, though. Sometimes people are wounded in such a way that they drive away the very people who could help them. Sometimes we can know how to help them, but they make it really hard to do so. What to do?

In the gospels we read that Jesus came across a man calling out for mercy, a dangerous exile who had terrorized the region, who was tormented within. The authorities tried to bind him hand and foot with chains to keep him out of sight and sound. His cries echoed off the hills as he cut himself with the ragged stones. What would you do with a dangerous man like him?

Jesus musters up his power and commands the tormenting spirit to come out of the man. It resists, begging Jesus not to torture him. Jesus asks him, “What is your name?” he replies, “My name is Legion for we are many.” The demons beg Jesus not to be sent out of the area, and so he casts them out of the man into a large herd of pigs feeding on the nearby hillside.

When Jesus cast Legion out of the exiled man, he was not only healing him, but giving him a glimpse of what can happen when his kingdom comes. Mercy is is how Jesus subverts the rule of tormenting spirits, and mercy is how the tortured are transformed. Mercy is what triumphs in Jesus’ kingdom.

Everyday we come across people who are crying out for mercy in some way. They may not necessarily use those words, but deep in their soul that is what they cry for. The tormented man who met Jesus on the shoreline was confrontational, anguished, and bleeding. It was not an easy encounter for Jesus. But mercy is what Jesus does. And it’s what he calls us to do.  Mercy transforms both ways.

Roman legions had tormented this region for many decades. Rebels were commonly crucified along the highways, reminding the people to submit or die. The pigs of the region were likely sold to the soldiers, thus catching the local citizens in a merciless trap – they made their livelihood off of feeding their enemies.

No wonder the people were afraid and pleaded Jesus to leave immediately. If Jesus was regarded as a king, and he had just sent the legions food-stock into the sea, they feared this was a politically motivated terrorist act. Reprisals would be swift and brutal.

Jesus understood, and he left as they asked. But when the healed exile asked to come with Jesus, he was given a mission: “Go home to your own people and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.”

The man healed by Jesus’ mercy was given a mission of mercy: go back to the ones who beat you, chained you, exiled you and proclaim the mercy of God upon them. Teach them the kingdom way of mercy, help them learn to be merciful to their oppressors, just as the exile is doing to his exilers. Mercy transforms both ways.

Whoever you meet, even if they are a difficult person, look to extend them mercy. With patient resolve and firm kindness, through the merciful power of the Spirit of Christ, don’t misunderestimate the healing you can bring to them through listening, being present, even fighting for them. It’s often the least of these that need mercy the most; and it is here where we will find Jesus. Mercy that heals, frees, and sends.